The final piece for this project consisted of an oil painting and an mp3 player with audio of 2 poems about the canal read and written by me.

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The canal bridge arched away from us;

it would’ve frowned if it weren’t spring.

I saw the picture as it could be,

a canvas, framed by blank walls.

The brambles underneath us

were lost in my viewfinder.

The paintbrush spat water in the wind,

skimmed my edges beside you.

Grass fingered my bare arms

yours, covered, shook off the breeze.

Dandelion heads shot white trains;

fell when the air did.

The shadowed water was grey,

green under the hedgerows

but brown by us in honest light.

Birds brought words to you from childhood,

urban Moorhens that ignored my lens

and picked at land for their miniatures.

We stood and the grass copied us,

stretched itself from our impressions.

The ground was frozen except where we walked,

grey puddles with hidden depths.

Impractical shoes slid through mud

that seeped between rubber and canvas.

We tried to cross a field,

got halfway before it deceived us;

our feet drowned on the last step.

We ducked under a bridge to rest

by a path that fled from us back to town.

You sat higher on the steep wall;

its stones were cold or damp; we couldn’t tell.

The canal was uneasy where the wind hit it;

tentative ripples that grazed the sides.

I wanted to be too close to see you.

Joggers struggled past, we shushed our silence.

A splash broke the surface of the water

waves swelled to crests and retreated.

I shuffled against the chill beside you;

if the wall was icy you would slide down,

to warm the January morning.

Hamish Fulton

Richard Long’s walks are a particularly well known example of conceptual and land art. Unlike his fellow artist and friend Fulton, Long describes his walks as the art itself whilst the photgraph is a visual representation. In this case it is necessary for the presenting of the work in a gallery. Like Fulton I see the work that is presented in the gallery as the art, and the methods to get their the development. At the time of making video recordings it almost seemed as though this in itself could be art, but then I was struck by the common problem of it not ever capturing the experience quite as it is felt.

Goldsworthy’s work is often criticised and there is some argument as to what genre it should be placed. To some extent it can be classed as environmental art yet not ecological art; it is using the environment as its primary resource on a an made level. It does not preserve the land. Moreover Goldsworthy changes – some would argue damages – nature to his end. Conversely, it is glorifying nature; as sculptural land art it is drawing attention to nature (a whole debate in itself). Goldsworthy again uses photographs to present to the art world, yet he also presents the sculptures as they are. The Storm King Wall seemed to be a criticism of the art world in general, presenting a traditional cumbrian stone wall inside and outside a gallery. It was suggesting the natural beauty of the cumbrian landscape, encouraging people to look beyond what they see. Personally, I enjoy the aesthetics of Goldsworthy’s pieces, which I think in themself say more about the beauty of the natural world than alot of other environmental art pieces.

Turner’s use of light is something I considered whilst painting. The water reflections in this piece as well as the warm sepia tones really appeal to me. Like Constable Turner tried to capture “England”; his more rural landscapes are arguably a better example of this. There is nearly always a definite human prescence in Turner’s landscapes that continue to prove a semi-conscious human dominance over the environment.

Martin Greenland’s painting almost seem like modern classics to me. Whilst they retain the compositional quality and feel of the Romantic’s, Greenland says himself that they cannot be said to be real. There is a fantasy quality to the work, more obvious in other pieces, yet some such as this one appear to be very similar to the American Romantics.